Big Jet Plane
by rubberbird
Summary: Ben comforts the Princess after she is deserted by Elliot. Ben/Princess.


Title: Big Jet Plane

Pairing: Ben Finn/Princess

Rating: R

Warnings: Mild sexytimes. That's about it.

A/Ns: I HATE TITLES.

Disclaimer: All property of Lionhead.

**Big Jet Plane**

Bowerstone Industrial wasn't any more inspiring by moonlight than it was by daylight. The Princess cast a look over the docks, deserted except for the moored ships, all bearing her brother's crest on their sails and hull. The water looked misleadingly calm and sweet under the veil of darkness, hiding its polluted depths.

She slipped her hands into the dirt next to her on the wall and dug a pebble out. She tossed it into the black waters and listened for the puny "plop" as it hit the water. Over the deafening and almost unending cacophony that never seemed to fade from Bowerstone Industrial it was almost impossible to make out the tiny, brittle sound. The roar of the factories was a constant hum in the backgrounds, and even at night the the air was blotted out by a layer of sooty smog. And the smell- Well, she had learnt to ignore it. Or at least breathe through her mouth.

Down by the water it was a little less abrasive. It mingled with the smell of salt from the open sea and the winds that came in to dilute some of that dirty, unwholesome air. She wasn't going to lie: it would be good to be away from this squalid little corner of the world for a while. Walled in on all sides by suffering, hunger, desperation. It was starting to grate on her. Sometimes her guilt and helplessness became almost overwhelming. Then she would volunteer to keep lookout by the docks. It was her only form of escape. She couldn't "wander off" (as Page put it) when things were so close to being put in motion.

She gave a frustrated sigh and turned away from the teasing waves, lapping against her brother's fleet.

"Not getting bored of guard duty already, are we, Princess?"

She gave a jerk at the sound of Ben's voice behind her in the darkness. She struggled to turn from her seating place carefully perched on the edge of the brick wall, feet dangling close to the water's surface. Ben grinned at her in the light of a spluttering torch he'd brought with him. His other hand was wrapped possessively around his rifle. Perhaps his most prized possession. Not that the Princess presumed to know what Ben Finn prized in life and what he didn't.

"Sneaking up on people in the dark. Is that your pick-up tactic?" the Princess remarked while Ben jammed the torch inelegantly into a long rusted bracket fastened to the wall above her.

"Not quite," Ben said cheerfully, seeming to deem his handiwork safe enough and standing above her on the ledge of the crumbling wall. "My tactic is far more subtle. Something involving chloroform, a one-legged chicken and three yards of orange string. Remind me to divulge it to your esteemed self sometime."

He winked at her, his roguish face furrowed from fending off the glare of the overly zealous torch, now leaning hazardously in the rusted bracket. The Princess looked away to hide her smile.

"I can't imagine we'll be having much action tonight," he said after a moment, when she didn't reply. He slid down beside her. The Princess felt his thigh press against hers as he arranged himself on the edge of the wall. She edged away an inch or two to her right, cringing at the sensation of the cold, dirty stone underneath her.

Ben glanced down at the slither of space now pointedly between their bodies, but said nothing.

She hadn't ever been so thankful for the incessant rumbling in the background of factories, chimneys and carts. It took the edge off the silence that could have otherwise been unbearable. She stared unfocusedly out at the silent docks, only too conscious of Ben's warm body next to her, his breathing, the sound of his weapons clinking dully against his thigh or the wall. She could see his eyes occasionally darting across to her.

She knew he wanted to say something. Even now, when she was certain she had proven herself to be no more than another soldier for the cause, they still treated her with an uneasy guardedness. They didn't quite dare carry on the way they would if she hadn't been present; the rollicking humour was checked and any talk of the revolution was spoken in only the most general of terms. She knew what they were thinking. They thought that when it came down to it she would desert them and side with her brother. They still counted her as a loose cannon, even now. Even Page's support wasn't enough to convince them. Well, not all of them.

"Come out for some fresh air, did you?" she said finally, staring broodingly at her brother's crest bobbing sluggishly up and down in the black waters below.

"I came to give you a bit of company!" Ben said good-naturedly, smiling his lop-sided smile at her and feeling for something in the pocket of his somewhat stained fawn trousers. "You know me. Always looking out for the team. And you, I would say, are the team captain so I need to keep an extra close look out for you, don't I?"

"Page kicked you out, didn't she?" the Princess said.

Ben snorted. "Uppity cow." He scratched moodily as his auburn hair with his free hand, the other still feeling about in the depths of his pocket. "All I said was that me and 'er should have a roll in the hay once everything was said and done with this revolution business- as a _joke_, mind you- and she gets all _grounds for a sexual harassment suit _on me. She might be brilliant, but she has got to get laid or something because she is just wound tighter than Logan's knickers-"

He looked quickly at her, the familiar look of alarm rapidly crossing his face as he realised that he had again blundered into saying something he shouldn't have.

"Sorry. I mean. He's- Your- And I-"

The Princess groaned. "It's _fine_." She kicked at the surface of the water with her heel. "I know he's my brother, but you don't have to keep apologising for hating him. I get it. He's done bad things."

She lapsed into silence, already regretting her outburst. The last thing she needed to do was alienate more people- more friends.

Ben patted her in a supremely awkward manner on her shoulder. "Sorry, mate. I mean... I'm sorry for... ah, well you get me. I know it must be rotten being in your position. If you don't mind my saying."

The Princess looked at him, fighting the urge to laugh. "It's alright, Ben. Really. I'm sorry. I'm just a little... a little..." The words rolled awkwardly around in her mouth. "I'm frightened I suppose," she said finally.

She surprised herself by telling him the truth. She had been ignoring the growing feeling in her gut for days, but now she had finally said aloud what she had known in her heart for a very long time: she was frightened out of her mind by the prospect of going to Aurora. It terrified her. She was leaving everything she knew and everything she loved. And who knew what she would find when she returned? She felt the uneasy knot in her stomach tighten until it was almost sickening.

"Look, if anyone can convince barbarians from distant, unexplored shores to throws themselves behind a wildly risky and untested revolutionary scheme it's you, Princess," Ben said, in a almost gentle tone. He was silent for a moment, and the princess knew what he was going to ask next. "Perhaps... perhaps it isn't Aurora that's frightening you."

The Princess forced a laugh. "Ben Finn the shrink?"

Ben laughed, looking away in a bashful manner. If the Princess hadn't known better, by the light of the awful, overbearing lamp it looked very much like he was flushing. "Look, I know what you're thinking," he said offhandedly. "I'm probably not the first person you think of when it comes to matters of the heart, but believe it or not I have been known to... well, get the odd twinge in that vague abdominal region."

The Princess smiled wryly. "I know you think Page is wonderful. I do too."

She ignored the protesting twinge in her chest, the heated burst of some twisted, unhealthy emotions that she wished she could just silence.

"Yeah, Page is wonderful," Ben said, with a grimace. He yanked his forgotten hand from his trouser pocket, bringing a handsome pipe with him. It reminded her stridently of Major Swift's. She couldn't help wondering if it _was_ Major Swift's; it seemed a fitting parting gift to his most trusted friend. "She's gorgeous- I mean have you _seen_ her-"

He broke off hastily, looking at her sideways. The Princess rolled her eyes at him in the dark, biting her tongue with difficulty. Sometimes Ben's infatuation with Page became a little trying. To put it mildly.

"Well... anyway..." he said vaguely. "She's brilliant, she beautiful, she's as sharp as a bumblebee's arse, but she's so far in with this revolutionary stuff." He shook his ginger head with a troubled frown. "Nah. She'd never go for a soldier. She'd never go for anyone I don't think. She just loves her work too much. But, hey. Swings and roundabouts, eh?" He winked at her, and struck up a match on the edge of the brick wall.

"So, what... you're going to spend the remainder of your life dreaming about brilliant, beautiful but oh-so-unobtainable Page the revolutionary?" the Princess couldn't help asking, trying to obscure the irritable edge to the question.

She clambered to her feet, dusting off the dirt from the backs of her, now somewhat damp, trousers. Ben watched her, the pipe thoughtfully pinched in the corner of his mouth. "Now, look. Don't be like that. You know how I feel about you- how everyone feels about you. God. But you don't need me to tell you that. Page isn't exactly the poster girl for likability or popularity. She's a hard one."

"Even that sounds like a compliment coming from you," the Princess replied acidly.

Ben struggled to his feet, yanking the pipe from his lips. "You don't need me to tell you what you already know. You're the Princess of Albion for God's sake. When I was a boy-"

"Oh, God. This story again?" the Princess said, half-laughingly and half-exasperatedly. She turned and wandered down the edge of the water, trying to hide just how much she wanted Ben to tell her what he really thought of her, to blast away the jealousy of Page with something tangible of her own.

"You never get tired of it," Ben insisted. She heard him walk up the wall behind her, but she didn't turn. "You never get tired of hearing how I longed to meet the young, beautiful, sweet Princess of Albion. If you heard of how people spoke about you, you wouldn't ever doubt yourself."

"Ben," she began. She turned and found herself almost face to face with Ben's whiskery, roughly handsome features. "Ben-"

She took an uncertain step back, as he lifted the unoccupied hand towards her. She watched as he held it hesitantly in front of her, level with the curve of her bodice. In the moonlight, her will lines shimmered and looked like glassy rivers running backwards and forwards on her skin. They were usually unnoticeable when she wasn't in combat, but she was still uncomfortably conscious of them. They seemed to mark her out, like a scar or a banner and she didn't always want to trumpet to the world just who and what she was.

"I never understood those," Ben said, eyes fixed a little indelicately on her collarbone. "Do they glow just when you're using magic?"

"Yes," the princess replied, a little breathlessly. "You can touch-"

Ben obliged her more quickly than she had expected. His warm, rough, but surprisingly delicate fingertips touched the curve of her neck, just above the ridge of her collarbone. She knew she had a long, thin one from the nape of her neck to the underside of her ear. She could feel it.

"Seems unfair," Ben said, eyes lowered towards his fingers as he ran one slowly along the will line. She could feel his finger trembling against her skin. "Some get magical abilities and some don't."

The Princess lifted her hand to catch his. She grasped it gently in hers and tugged it away from her neck. "We don't choose it. Fate isn't always fair."

Ben's eyes flickered up from her will lines to her face. In the sturdy leather boots Jasper had acquired for her she was almost the same height as him, but he still had a few inches over her. The tip of his triangular, oft-broken nose was just level with her eyes.

The lamp behind them gave a damp splutter and they both jerked where they were. The Princess laughed, taking the chance to turn away from him. He had been looking at her so closely, so steadily. It was nothing like his usual amused, sparkling, teasing manner. He had been so serious. The Princess felt a confused twinge in her stomach.

"It wasn't good news, was it?" Ben said loudly from behind her.

The Princess turned slowly towards him. "What?"

"From your lover. The handsome one... with the hair." He gave a grimace and took a broody puff of his pipe. "I thought you two were getting married. That's what everyone said. Walter thought it was a sure thing-"

"Must you?" she snapped, narrowing her eyes at his would-be innocent expression. "Firstly, it's none of your concern, and secondly, you couldn't possibly understand... understand what-"

"I know," Ben said, throwing his hands up. "I know. You were in love. The whole kingdom knows. But it seems to me-"

"I don't care how it seems to you, Ben," she retorted. "You seem to think that everyone else's affairs are yours, but some aren't. Mine aren't. So just leave it alone. Leave _me_ alone."

She turned her back on him, crossing her arms against the cold and Ben's startled, stung expression. She could feel it on his face. She knew he was hurt. Ben wore his heart on his sleeves and then wondered at the pain it caused him.

"Alright," he said at length. "I'll leave you alone."

She heard him throw his match away into the water below. It landed with the barest patter, a miniscule whisper below the roar of industry.

She heard him turn on his heel, his heavy soldiers' boots crunching into the dirt. The lamp gave another shuddery hiss behind her.

"Wait!" She had jerked back around towards him before she could stop herself.

Ben turned slowly back to her. He hadn't even taken one step away from her. He smiled. A wry, knowing little smile that looked oddly misplaced on his brash, honest face.

"I..." she searched fruitlessly for words that wouldn't make her look like a dithering fool. "Why don't we take a walk?"

"Around the charming pits of steaming sewage of Bowerstone Industrial?" Ben remarked, quirking an eyebrow. "How could I say no?"

The Princess gave a short laugh and accepted the arm he offered her.

He was warm next to her and his arm was strong and sturdy around hers. He was a comfortable weight next to her in the cold and damp that pervaded Bowerstone Industrial like a heavy fog.

Ben soon took the lead, as they wandered back towards the steaming, smoking chimneys of the factories and warehouses. He seemed to know the safest routes around Bowerstone. He knew which roads to take to avoid Logan's guards, to avoid the mercenaries employed by some factory owners to protect their stock and to avoid the most crowded mobs of beggars, who grasped at the legs of passersby and called out in their pitiful, shrunken, weak voices for help and charity. The Princess gave as much as she could, but there were always more beggars. Always.

"You can't just mortgage your house and hand over your life's savings," Ben said sternly, as they crossed the bridge to the line of stalls that now stood deserted and silent in the darkness. "There's a lot of hungry people in this city. You can't save them all."

The Princess rolled her eyes and said nothing. She felt Ben wrap his arm tighter around hers, like he was protecting her from the cold, the dark, the damp and the people of Bowerstone Industrial. It was amusing to her the way Ben wrapped himself around her, in some clumsy, well-meaning gesture of protection when he must have known perfectly well that the Princess was more than able to look after herself.

"Page is going to kill us for leaving the docks," she said at length.

They finally came to a halt by the bridge over the canal. The water was thick with pollution and waste and let off a stale, ripe stench of rotting vegetables. A few beggars were gathered by the steps on the far side, their clothes barely more than shredded strips of rag hanging loosely over their haggard bodies.

"She'll get over it," Ben said with a shrug, snaking his arm out of hers and leaning against the railings shouldering the canal. He folded his arms, and even in the gloom she could see him watching her, thoughtfully and carefully.

Another silence drifted over them. Ben did not seem inclined to break it. The Princess didn't know what to say. She knew what Ben was thinking of. She didn't blame him. He had dismissed her jealousy of Page so easily, so warmly. In true Ben Finn style he had poured his whole heart into comforting her, as he did with everything else in his life. He wanted her to do the same, but she hadn't. She hadn't comforted him, she hadn't dismissed his misgivings.

"I think I knew." The words sounded sharp and vulnerable in the damp air. She trembled a little from the cold, and didn't know if she had the strength to carry on and say what she had kept from saying for such a long time. "I think I knew he had done with me when he kissed me."

She looked Ben in the eyes. She was so uncertain of what he would say to her, so uncertain of what he would think. She couldn't see much more than blackened hollows in the darkness, but she could imagine them. She could imagine the clear, sharp blue of them.

Ben stayed silent. He was perfectly still against the railings, arms still crossed and his shadowy face never turning away from hers.

"He wanted me to make the right decision," she said quietly. "I didn't. I didn't do what was right, what was just. He should be with Linda. They're doing wonderful things. They're helping people. I just wanted things to be like they were when we were young." A waver came into her voice. She tried to swallow it, but it was there. Bold as brass. Betraying her pain, her self-loathing, the heartache that had torn through her like a disease.

"You don't have to hold on to a few perfect fragments of your past," Ben said, taking a steady step towards her. "It isn't all there is. It isn't all you'll ever have."

"Wise words from a man who spends his life drinking and womanizing," the Princess said shakily, even while she tried to inject strength into her voice and shake off the creeping vines of heartache. "You don't know how much I l-... how I-"

He was barely inches from her. She could smell his rich, heady scent. The smell of the cheap wine he drank and a musty, dry scent he kept in a bottle under his pallet in the hideout. She stepped back from him, knowing she was close to the clammy brick wall behind her.

"I loved him." She could see his face now; he was so close she could see each feature, even in the gloom. She could see the lines between his brows and around his mouth, the lines he'd got from laughing and yelling and carrying on the way he always carried on. She could see his eyes. Bright and clear and earnest. Never hiding or playing games or teasing with her emotions.

"I know," Ben said, his voice barely more than a breath against her cheek.

Before she could speak, his mouth was suddenly against hers. His hands were on her waist, strong and broad against her ribs. He pushed her, not roughly but firmly backwards and she felt the damp wall creep down her shoulders and back.

Her mind, which moments before had been writhing with uncertainty, was suddenly buzzing with low, simmering heat. Something she hadn't felt since she had been very young. Her arms had found their way around Ben's shoulders, her fingers stumbling over the rough cotton pads attached to his uniform.

"Ben..." she breathed, breaking away from his lips. She gulped down a mouthful of the cold, sharp night air, feeling suddenly out of breath. "Ben-"

He touched a hand to her chin, gently tilting her face up towards his. He was smiling. Of all the things in the world she had expected, she had not expected to find him smiling. She was almost taken aback to see the lust simmering in his crisp blue eyes. It took her by surprise, as though it had never occurred to her that Ben Finn had ever fantasised about her, had ever thought about her in that way. In the way he thought about Page.

She had thought about Ben. They had made her sick with guilt, those fantasies, those thoughts. Every time she had allowed herself to entertain an attraction to a man who wasn't Elliot she had been overcome with regret. It had taken a long time for her to be able to look at another man and want him the way she had wanted Elliot without feeling she had committed a crime against her lover. Her ex-lover.

"What are you thinking of?" Ben murmured, breaking into her thoughts.

"After all this time," she replied, the tenuous tremor to her voice refusing to die. "Why now? We're about to leave for Aurora, we're about to leave Albion for... for God knows how long and you-"

"There's no one I'd rather be beside when we cross over to that barren wasteland." He smiled again, a smaller, weaker smile. Her arms tightened around his shoulders and she pulled him roughly against her, so his body was flush against hers. She wanted to drink in his scent; the musty, smoky scent that clung to his clothes and hair. She wanted to feel his body against her. She had never been so certain of what she wanted. Not since Elliot.

His hands moved slowly down her waist to her thighs. He kissed her again and she returned the kiss with more fervour, more passion than she had thought herself still capable of possessing. She was conscious of everything: the mess of his body against hers, the tangle of confused scents in her nostrils: the tangle of Ben Finn's wine and his cologne and the foul, ripe odour of the canal, the dull roar of Bowerstone Industrial in the background, but suddenly little more than a distant hum in the most distant reaches of her mind.

Her back was pressed against the wall, it was wet and soaking her clothes through, but it was the faintest sensation in the whole mad mixture around her. Ben's hands were on the buttons on her cotton trousers, he was pulling them roughly down, in sharp, jerking movements, not willing to free her mouth from his. His kiss was like nothing she had experienced; it was hungry, almost desperate and she knew she was returning it with the same wild fervour.

She fumbled with the buttons on her trousers, blindly and ineptly trying to aid Ben in tearing them open. He broke away for a split second to gasp the words: "Stop. Mine."

She clumsily moved her fingers to the belt around his waist. She tore it open and did the same to his buttons, ripping them clean away in the process. She heard them scatter across the bricks beneath them, rolling away into unseen corners and puddles.

Ben gave a low chuckle against her mouth. "I hope you know a good tailor. Trousers are hard to come by when you're a traitor to the crown."

The Princess couldn't obscure her laugh. Moments later, she felt her trousers slip down another inch around her thighs. She had almost forgotten where she was while she had been looking at him, drinking in every line, every whisker, every flaw and feature on his face.

She felt Ben's bare thighs touch hers and her mind was suddenly shocked into blankness. She felt him push firmly between her legs, his hands almost painfully tight around her waist and his breathing hard and haggard in her ears. She gasped as he pushed himself fully inside of her. A strangled groan sounded as though it were torn from his throat.

In the backmost quarter of her lust fogged mind wild thoughts kept coming into her mind: what would her brother think of her? What would her parents think of her? How furious would Page be when she realised what they had abandoned guarding the dock in favour of?

But those questions were suddenly and roughly dispersed when Ben starting moving against her, rough and unsteady but with feverish passion. The same furious passion he implemented in everything in his life.

"B-Ben," she moaned, clasping his shoulders tighter and rolling her hips up to meet his.

He gave a helpless whimper at the sound of his name and thrust with almost reckless vigour. She could feel the wall against her back, colliding with her painfully every time Ben rocked forward against her. Her thighs were slipping against his hips, but she knew she wouldn't fall. He was holding her too tightly and the wall was too sturdy a support.

"Ben... Ben..." she gasped, pulling back to look at his face. He was flushed furiously red, his features were taut with pleasure and an intense need for release. "Please-"

"Yes, Princess," he moaned. "Yes. Oh, God- Oh, God I-I love... I love you-"

For a moment she went rigid at the sound of the words, marred by breathlessness and desperation. With another thrust he cried out almost wildly and she felt him spend his seed inside of her. A moment later, with the sounds of Ben's pleasure in her ears she reached her climax and was blinded.

Everything around her was a foggy, discoloured blur, and then slowly it trickled back into focus and Ben's damp face appeared before her. He slowly lowered her down, grinning somewhat bashfully. She hastily unhooked herself from him and yanked her trousers back up around her hips. She hardly dared to meet his eye again.

"Princess," he said quietly. He held out one of the buttons he had torn from her shirt amongst the messy blur of their lovemaking.

"Thanks," she replied stiffly, taking it from him and slipping it into her trouser pocket. "We'd better get back to Page. You know what she's like."

Ben shrugged, hastily yanking up his trousers and using his belt to fasten them haphazardly around his waist. "Good as new."

The Princess snorted. "I'm sure Page will be none the wiser."

Ben looked sideways at her, his lopsided smile crooking the sides of his mouth. "Well, she had her chance, didn't she? She can't claim I wasn't a hospitable revolutionary."

They walked back to the hideout in silence. The Princess didn't know what to say, and didn't know how she felt.

They reached the rusted, filthy door to the hideout and came to a slow stop. Ben turned to face her. He looked thoroughly had. His hair was tangled beyond recognition, his face was still tinged with a pinkish glow and his clothes were almost comically askew.

The Princess was suddenly struck by how cold it was now they had stopped walking. She wrapped her arms around herself, watching and waiting for Ben to speak. She didn't know what they could say to explain away what had just happened. She didn't want to think. Suddenly everything seemed like too much to take at this time of the night.

"I really should get some sleep," she said finally, when it became clear Ben wasn't going to articulate whatever he was thinking. "Tomorrow's going to be a... a big day." It seemed ridiculous to describe travelling to a new continent as "a big day", but she didn't know what else to say.

"Ah, yes," Ben said hurriedly, leaning across to open the door for her. "Of course. That sounds very... ah, wise."

The Princess smiled at him through the darkness. More than part of her regretted leaving him so soon.

She paused at the door, looking over at shoulder at where he stood. "Good night, Ben."

He fumbled for her hand in the darkness and held it lightly to his lips, grazing a kiss on her knuckles. He dropped it without a word and she slipped inside, ready to deflect Page and Walter's questions about her whereabouts and the dishevelment of her clothes.

End


End file.
